Amaranth
by Merccy
Summary: Up until now, his life has been an endless, monotonous routine. But things are about to change. [Danny backstory fic] [Chapter four up]
1. Chapter One

**Title: **Amaranth

**Author: **Mercury

**Rating: **R for strong language, some drug use and upcoming violence.

**Author's Notes: **And so begins the Danny epic, a fic I've been developing for a while now. Huge thanks go to **CTB** for her awesome Spanish-speaking skills, especially since my knowledge of the language is extremely limited; and to **babythunder** for her amazingly helpful beta and encouragement. Enjoy!

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_Amaranth_:

**1: **a flower that never fades****

**2: **undying, everlasting__

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The sun above them shone with an inescapable intensity without so much as a single cloud to shield the rays from the city of Hialeah, Florida. Two thirteen-year-old boys made their way up the grimy streets of the city, stepping over the scraps of magazines and newspapers that lined the curbs and filled the gutters of the streets.

"So I told him that if he wanted a piece of me, he could come right up and get some, right?" Trying to conceal his heavy breaths from the strenuous uphill journey in between his words, he kicked an empty beer bottle to the curb and watched it shatter. Next to them, laundry hung from clothespins on a thin rope like old makeshift ghosts.

"You're full of shit, Andres." Replied the other boy, removing his baseball cap and tiredly fanning himself with it.

Filled with indignation that his friend would doubt his story, Andres puffed out his chest and assuredly replied, "Am not."

"Yeah, I'm sure you fought him off all by yourself." Danny responded, the sweltering July heat making him annoyed and cranky rather than amused at the tall tale.

"He ran off before I could make my move, but if he'd stayed I woulda kicked his ass."

The boys moved to the side of the road and sat on the edge of the sidewalk, picking up rocks from underneath them and tossing them into the potholes of the street as Andres continued, full of bravado. "I was fucking Scarface, man, I could've taken Pedro and all his boys down just like _that_ if they hadn't been chicken." He snapped his fingers and grinned.

The elderly man sitting in a plastic deck chair across the street from them peered at the boys as the blades in his fan spun around and around lazily in an endless, monotonous routine. "Daniel! Andres! ¿Deberían ustedes estar en la escuela?" _Shouldn't you be in school?_

"No, Señor Colombia." They chanted back in unison. "It's summer." Andres added.

"Man," Danny said, eyeing the old man lying in his chair and tossing another stone into the road, "I hope I'm not gonna end up like that, some wacko old dude goin' crazy on my front porch, right? Not even knowin' it's July of 1985, just totally zoned out."

"I ain't gonna end up like that, I'm gonna end up like one of those rockstars with the chicks and the mansions and that shit." Andres' cheeks were flushed as images of the boyish ideals of fame and fortune raced through his mind.

Danny managed a smile as the sweat dripped from his brow and fell down his face, where he wiped it off with a bare arm. "I've gotta go. If I'm not home by five Consuela'll probably be sendin' out search parties and shit."

The two boys said their goodbyes and parted ways.

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The apartment was even hotter than it was outside, and the fan Consuela had set up in the kitchen wasn't doing much to help. "Hey, Danny." She said absentmindedly when he wandered into the room, where she was helping with the baby at the table. It had been crying for the past hour and she was weary, fatigued from heat and constant responsibility for the children constantly entering and exiting and demanding.

"Hey." Opening the refrigerator, he grabbed a plastic can of Coke, leaving his head inside the cool area for one beautiful moment more.

"Close the door, honey." Consuela said falteringly, too tired to chastise him.

Reluctantly he closed it and took a sip from the can before heading to the next room wordlessly. Spending a year with Consuela and Bobby and the rest of the kids assigned to them by the court had been more awkward than spending twelve with Mami and Papi, he felt. Their saccharine sweetness towards him and Rafael only encouraged him to push their limits so he could see their reactions -- would they care if he got into a fight, or punish him if he got into serious trouble? Rafael had already pushed them and found them to be too weak to stand up to him, so he had gone further, leaving Danny stuck somewhere around the middle, cautiously doing small, stupid things like not doing the dishes when he was supposed to or sneaking some beer to give to Rafael.

Rafael quickly tried to hide the needle underneath his pillow when Danny walked in, but Danny was too hot and tired to care. He flung himself on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Yo, you gonna cover for me tonight?" Rafael was pulling on a clean shirt (how he could stand to wear black in such heat was a mystery to Danny). Outside, the sun was beginning to descend, harsh yellow giving way to vivid shades of orange and pink that covered the town.

"I'll try." He murmured, entranced by the sunset. He had seen innumerable sunsets, watched the sun fade before his eyes many times, but he had never witnessed a sunrise. Descriptions of the sun's entrance at dawn from books and magazines he had read just didn't help in conjuring the image of a sunrise in his head -- he had to see it, see just one and preserve that memory in his mind forever.

"Chévere, gracias." The radio was playing something by Prince that Danny truly despised, and he reached over to turn it down. "I'll be back around eleven, if all goes well. We're -- "

Danny held up his hand, halting his brother in the middle of his sentence. "I don't want to know, Raffi. I don't care what you do, I just don't wanna get involved in any of your shit."

"That's cool, fine." Slicking back his hair, Rafael admired himself in the mirror. "Ain't no fucking cops gonna catch _us_ tonight. Wish me luck, man."

As his brother crawled out the window and down the fire escape, Danny felt a twinge of guilt. Part of him always hoped that Rafael would get caught and finally put away, and maybe then he could stop covering for him and watching on helplessly as all the good deeds he did for him by covering for him amounted to just more shit flowing through his bloodstream. He thought about that, that and a million other things, and before he knew it he was asleep.

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_ i know this is a dream but i don't care_

_ he's riding a bike down a hill and the wind is in his hair, and he knows that later ahead there will be an end to it (even sooner than he expects it to be, so he tries to be happy about it right now) but for now, the world is whizzing by and he doesn't care about any of them, not Andres or Rafael or the crazy old man or Mami and Papi_

_ (people asked him why he only cried once when they were gone and he had said they weren't gone, they would always be there in their boxes for him to talk to, even though he knew Papi wouldn't be listening from his place in Hell)_

_ and the bike goes faster and faster_

_ (but that was before he realized they were gone and it was his fault)_

_ and why does everything good in his life have to come to such a sudden stop so soon?_

_ sometimes i don't want to wake up (a veces no quiero despertarme)_

When he awoke all he could remember was a bicycle and the image of Mami and Papi in their coffins, and it was dark out and Rafael was back, and the blades of the fan were still spinning endlessly.


	2. Chapter Two

As always, huge thanks to **babythunder** for being the rocking beta she is. G And thanks to **CTB** for helping with the Spanish, because internet translators? suck.

And here is Chapter two. Enjoy!

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"He steps up to the plate . . . eyes Alvarez at bat. This Danny rookie might be good, but he's ain't no match for the 90-miles-per-hour fastballs Andres Listonado's been throwin' all season -- "

"Shut up and throw the ball already?"

Oblivious to Danny's annoyance, Andres continued to speak in his mock-announcer voice, kicking at the dirt as he stood on the makeshift pitcher's mound. "An MVP _and_ Rookie of the Year in the same year, he's won the World Series for his team -- "

"Dammit, I want to play baseball."

" -- twice -- "

"Are you going to pitch already? Because if not, I'll go home. I don't have to listen to your crap."

" -- and leading sports authorities predict him to win the Heisman Trophy in the fall."

Danny sighed. "That's for football, dumbass." Distracted, he hardly noticed the ball come flying over the plate. His arms reacted too late and when he swung he sliced through nothing but thin air.

"Fuck you." Danny grinned. "I'm gonna get y -- " Before he could turn to retrieve the ball, something solid (probably the very ball he was going to pick up, he realized) flew through the air and struck his head from behind. "What the fuck was that?" He demanded, turning around, brandishing his baseball bat like a club.

The boy who had thrown it was tall and thin, with eyes that were hard and cold and focused as he spoke. A malicious grin spread across his face when he hit his target, and he asked, "Are you Alvarez?"

"Yeah." He replied, trying to appear tough and hoping that he wasn't as foolish as he sounded to himself. The bat now hung from only one of his hands, and he was leaning on it for support rather than wielding it as a weapon.

The man -- somewhere around Rafael's age, he noted, eighteen or nineteen -- nodded, and a sturdy, muscular boy who appeared wider than the swamp dogwood tree behind him, stepped forward. Danny nearly raised his fists reflexively before the boy grabbed a handful of Danny's shirt and lifted him into the air, slamming him against the tree and knocking the wind out of him. His heart a racing jackrabbit, he struggled to keep his eyes from straying to the ground as the infamous gang leader spoke.

"Then tell your brother to keep his nose out of business that don't concern him. The next time he wants to waste his money at the racetrack, you tell him I don't want his business no more, not unless he can pay me the fuckin' money he owes me when he loses. Tell him about this little incident, will ya -- let him know that I can do more than just make threats if he even considers it again?"

Danny nodded.

"And tell him I want my money by tomorrow night. _¿Entienda?_"

Danny nodded again, figuring he was better off without speaking.

"Good." The burly kid dropped him, and he fell to the foot of the tree as the gang walked away.

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"But they're gonna kill you!" _Or me_, he failed to add, not wanting to think of what Pedro would come up with for them if Rafael didn't pay him. He had heard tales of the town's main drug dealer before, but none of them had prepared him in any way for his first encounter with the legend himself.

Rafael sighed. "Look, I got that, okay? I don't have any fucking money. His old man's store gets the most cash in the town, that's the only place I could get enough." His laugh was dry and humorless. "And then he'd kill me for stealing from his dad's store."

"Look, I can help you get it." The words came out of his mouth before he could help it, but he knew he couldn't follow up a sentence like that with _No, I didn't mean to say that at all_.

Gazing at his brother with newfound curiosity -- and maybe, Danny thought, even some respect -- Rafael slowly said, "Are you sure?" When he received confirmation he continued thoughtfully, "there's that garage over on the next street. How much d'you think we'd get for that '79 Mercedes that's been sitting there all week?"

"I don't know." He replied uncomfortably.

"Well," Rafael patted Danny's shoulder. "I guess we'll have to find out."

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The air was cooler at night, rare breezes occasionally passing through and providing a temporarily relief to the humidity that plagued the town during the day. Danny could see why Rafael did all of this -- it wasn't just for the money, it was also for the adrenaline rush that came with the thrill of doing something dangerous and forbidden.

The summer night was still fairly light, dark enough for the boys to blend into the shadows with their dark clothing but light enough to see without the assistance of flashlights.

"You stand guard." Rafael hissed at Danny, who obediently moved out front and kept watch while Rafael and Dino jimmied the lock. Every whisper, every creak of the door as it slid open seemed to reverberate in the alley and spread through the town. Any minute now the cops would come and arrest them, and it would all be over.

The boys tinkered with the wires and buttons behind him as goosebumps sprung up on his arms, a cold fear filling him despite the heat.

"Almost done." Dino whispered.

From around the corner Danny could hear footsteps approaching, and he froze. These weren't part of his imagination, and they weren't the soft steps of the rats that scurried by his feet. Sure enough, Danny could make out the figure of an elderly man coming down the street, his face obscured by shadow.

"There's someone coming." Danny whispered breathlessly to the boys behind him, his throat dry.

Rafael looked up from the car. "Fuck." He swore softly. "Do something!"

The man was coming closer, and he began to shout when he noticed the door to the shop open. "Hey! You _cabrones _get the fuck outta my garage!"

Danny's hand shot out and grasped an empty beer bottle that had been resting on the card table next to him. The last dregs of the liquid inside trickled out as he gripped it by the neck, waiting tersely as the man came closer until finally, he was so close to them --

His mind wasn't controlling his body anymore. One arm brought the bottle crashing down on the man's head as the man fell to the ground. Shaking, he tossed the bottle into the street, watching it fragmentize and send its pieces scatter across the road.

"Good job." Rafael commented offhandedly as he continued to work on the car.

Minutes passed slowly as the man lay still on the side of the garage, where Dino had moved him. Finally the car was hotwired and ready to go, and relief filled Danny as they quietly cruised out of the garage and into the street.

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"Here's to Dino and his carjacking skills." Rafael held up his can of beer as a toast, and he and Dino took a swig from their cans. "The only fucking Italian in Hialeah!"

Dino and Rafael laughed heartily. "Yo, Danny. That was pretty damn good for your first time." Rafael was offering him the last can from the current pack, pushing aside the plastic rings that had held them and reaching towards Danny. "Whassa matter?" He slurred. "Won't kill ya."

Uncertainly he accepted the drink, popping open the tab and swearing in surprise when the warm foam came gurgling out of the top. While the other two laughed he took a cautious sip, trying to conceal his grimace.

He didn't know how long he was there. All he knew was that when Dino and Rafael left him, there was a pile of cans at his feet and he couldn't go more than a few steps without puking in the street. He tried to follow them, pushing himself forward with the thought of his soft bed and the breeze of the fan next to it. The last image in his brain before he blacked out was the soft spinning of the fan blades going around . . . and around . . . and around.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter three has arrived. Huge thanks to **babythunder** for being an amazing beta, and **CTB **for helping me with the Spanish. You guys rock!

I don't own them, this is only vaguely canon . . . enjoy.

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The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a red haze that hung in the air, obscuring his view. He didn't know where he was, or when it was -- the last thing he remembered was falling into a bottomless black pit.

He tried to focus on his surroundings, but he was overcome by a sudden throbbing sensation in his brain. The sunlight that streamed through the blinds was too bright, the hushed whispers of the people next to him were too loud, and all of his senses seemed to be amplified so that every detail resounded in his brain with mind-splitting intensity.

"Hey, he's awake."

"Uh?" Danny croaked out as the two figures -- Rafael and Dino, he guessed -- laughed. "What the . . . what the hell happened?"

Rafael's face slowly appeared. "Well, you totally passed out. We had to go back and get you because if someone had found you, we'd really be fucked."

Danny tried to nod his head slightly in agreement to keep the conversation going, but it felt like a bag of bricks came crashing down on his head with every motion.

"And then we got you back here, me and Dino went and sold the car, we paid Pedro." He grinned. "And now we're all good." He mussed Danny's hair (it hurt his head, but he didn't want to admit that) and patted him on the arm as if they had suddenly bonded overnight. Danny didn't bother to ask about how they managed to sell the car; at this point he didn't care much about Pedro or cars or anything.

Dino tapped Raffi on the arm. "Hey, we gotta go."

Rafael gave Danny a nod and stood up. "We're gonna stop by the racetrack. If Consuela asks, we're at the movies, _claro_?" He mussed Danny's hair again, something neither he nor Papi had ever done before (did it take crime to bring them together?). "That was fun, wasn't it? Probably the best time you've had in a while."

He and Dino left to go to the racetrack as Danny's stomach churned. He couldn't tell whether it was from the alcohol or the gut feeling that told him he'd be going on more midnight escapades sometime soon, but it made him vomit in the trash can next to his bed nevertheless.

His sheets felt like they were trapping him, binding him to the bed, but he somehow managed to fall into a restless slumber.

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When Rafael had told Danny that the robbery was the best time Danny had had in a while, Danny had nodded. He pretended to agree with him while the memories of the real day lurked further in the back of his mind, shrouded by the alcohol-induced fog that clouded his brain. It was a Wednesday afternoon.

His other brother's name wasn't Joe, but somewhere along the line that's what people started calling him. Even Mami and Papi did it, and eventually his original name was lost, a faded memory harbored in the minds of only those who remembered his baptism twenty-two years ago. Joe had picked up Danny early from school that day and let him sit in the very back of the pickup truck, where he sat and let the breeze ruffle his hair and sting his eyes. Joe brought along his fiancée Ellie, and they sat up front while Danny watched them laugh and talk from behind the smudged plastic window.

They had gone to the movies and seen _Scarface_, and when it ended Danny and Joe did their best impressions of Al Pacino while Ellie held hands with Joe and rolled her eyes. They went to an ice-cream shop, like Joe and Grandpapi used to before Grandpapi passed away, and ordered sundaes that they all shared. And Danny felt like the smile on his face would never, _could_ never fade; he had never done things like this with Mami or Papi or Rafael or anyone else.

But then he got back home and it was different, and a week later some drunk drove his car into Joe's, and it flipped over twice and hit a tree. Papi was too drunk to go to the funeral so Danny walked there and stood next to Ellie during the service. Three days later she tried to hang herself from the ceiling fan, but it broke and she ended up in a mental hospital somewhere outside of Tallahassee. And when the boys at Danny's school laughed about it, he laughed along too, because he couldn't do anything else anymore.

For the longest time his dreams were filled with faceless bodies hanging from ceiling fans and shadows in pickup trucks. For some reason the dream came back as he slept, and he awoke sweating and breathing hard, trying to rid his mind of those images and of the intense pain in his head that accompanied them.

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"Where were you last night?" Andres asked, kicking a can down the street.

Danny's head had cleared but the sunlight still hurt his eyes. "I was busy." He said importantly, as if he had been spying for the government rather than stealing a car in a rundown garage.

Andres rolled his eyes.

"Let's just say I had some business to take care of." Nonchalantly, he gave a half-shrug and squinted as the sun hit his eyes and obscured his view of the street in front of him.

Andres' interest was clearly piqued. "Is that where you got the cut on your arm?"

"_Oh_ yeah." He hadn't noticed the cut before, but now there was a large red gash running from his elbow to his wrist. A wound he had received during a blackout at three in the morning was transformed into the result of a violent fight in Andres' eager eyes.

"So you gonna come over tonight? We can hang out by the park, I got a coupla packs of smokes from my dad."

Danny made a face that suggested he was above such childish behavior. "Actually, I got some more important stuff to do."

It made him feel better to act better than Andres when he was around him, but he had already begun to wish everything were like it used to be. He didn't want to wake up in pain or spend late nights in alleys drinking with people who he hardly knew. He wanted to be able to throw a ball around with Andres and sneak into movies when it got to be too hot outside and just be a regular kid, but already he felt like those options had been taken away from him.

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He had left Andres only five minutes ago, waved to him as Andres waved back with big eyes filled with admiration, when he heard the voice.

"Hey, Alvarez!"

Frozen in his tracks, he turned around to see Pedro and his gang seated on a bench in the park, looking powerful and superior without even trying. Attempting to imitate that coolness, Danny walked over to the group. His hands shoved in his pockets, his face blank and cold, he tried to steady his heart. All he could manage to get out was a weak "Hey."

Pedro could see straight through him, and the amused twinkle in his eyes proved that to Danny. "So you're the hotshot your brother was braggin' about? Boosted a car for him to pay off a debt?"

He didn't know how to answer this, so he nodded uncertainly.

"Hey, you ever play chess?" Pedro asked him. "It's what's called a 'metaphor,' man. A metaphor for life." Having graduated high school, he demonstrated wisdom that was lost upon the middle-school dropouts of his gang. "You see, there are kings and queens and knights, and then there are the pawns. The pawns are the ones that don't matter, that no one gives a shit about. They're always the first to go. And you" -- he pointed at Danny almost accusingly -- "You're a pawn. But you have what it takes to be something else."

One of his goons spoke up. "What, he gonna be a king?" While the others laughed, Pedro and Danny made eye contact, keeping perfectly straight faces all the while.

"You have what it takes." He repeated again. "So I want to help you get to where you deserve to be."

"I don't understand." He said slowly.

Pedro smiled. "With Rafael, you'll be boosting cars for the rest of your life. With me, I can take you places. And I have many uses for guys that are skilled in this area of business." The way he spoke was so fluid and charming and _educated_ that it sounded more like he was trying to recruit Danny for a job on Wall Street instead of a robbery in Hialeah.

"You want me to help you?" Danny asked incredulously.

"I need an extra man for a job tonight."

(_Just like the other time, say no, he's not family, he's not Raffi, he won't mind, he's the one that got you into this mess to begin with, you don't want to do this_)

"Sure."

Pedro looked at him the same way Raffi had, with a combination of newfound respect and curiosity. "Be here at midnight."

Danny nodded and walked away.

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The gang members looked so calm and collected that it was hard to imagine them feeling the same way Danny did. Butterflies were swarming furiously in his stomach, but the others looked so composed that he had no choice but to imitate them.

The door of the liquor store had an old sticker claiming the store not only had surveillance cameras but a security system. The three of them -- Danny and two other guys he didn't know -- ignored those (no one in Hialeah could afford that, and who would want to spend a fortune just to guard a couple of old bottles of whisky anyway?) and picked the lock.

Once inside they headed towards the cash register, which was pitifully empty save for a few five-dollar bills. Danny and one of the others went to the wall and grabbed some of the bottles.

With a strange mixture of pride and regret and guilt (_don't forget, it was a drunk guy that killed Joe_) and some helplessness (_so much for not getting sucked back in_), he finished filling his bag with the stolen goods and exited the store.

Sometime that night the wound on his arm opened and he could only watch as the blood began to seep out.


	4. Chapter Four

Thanks to **CTB** for not killing me when I mangled the Spanish language to death, and to **babythunder** for not killing me when I mangled the other language, English, to death. I appreciate it so much, guys.

Enjoy.

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The midnight escapades continued on and on throughout the month, and eventually they wormed their way into his routine. He'd sneak out at twelve and make it back by three, drunk and spinning and utterly helpless. When he fell into bed Rafael keep snoring, the fresh puncture marks from the heroin's needles by his elbow guaranteeing he wouldn't wake up and notice Danny was gone during the night. And after a while things returned to their monotony, the robberies and drinking parties substituting for kicking cans down the street or games of baseball with Andres. And then after that, the ventures lost their thrill. His adrenaline never sped up when he broke a window or ransacked a store anymore, but he still recounted his stories to the others with a swagger and a boastful bravado.

They had been lying low for a week or two, trying not to alert the cops that lazily patrolled the town when shopkeepers started reporting more and more thefts. Vandalism and robbery wasn't anything new, though, and the police officers had long since given up on trying to bust a bunch of punk kids for petty crimes. But now the coast was clear, and they could return to their old ways.

"Cierre para arriba, hombre!" One of the boys Danny had come to know as Ramon turned around and warned the other boy, some new kid who had been whispering to Danny for the past ten minutes as they stood outside the liquor shop.

With skillful efficiency they crept into the dark store, trailed by the clumsier new boy. Danny smiled; was he that obnoxious when he first started? He had only been there for a month, he realized shortly afterwards -- maybe he was still that annoying. Pedro seemed to like him enough, and the other guys seemed to accept him, but you could never know. He decided to forget about it and keep his mind on the task at hand.

Ramon grabbed the cash from the register and motioned to the other two. "Come on. Let's go."

The new kid (something that started with an A, was it? Danny couldn't remember) still looked like he was stealing the Hope Diamond, his eyes wide with excitement and anxiety. "Hang on," said Danny, grabbing a bottle from the shelf in such a nonchalant manner that the kid's eyes only widened at what must have been his remarkable coolness.

"Look," Ramon said. "I'm outta here."

"Sheesh." Danny muttered. "I'm coming."

The two left the store, the new kid chattering excitedly all the while. Danny hung back for a minute and surveyed the rack before grabbing a fifth of rum from the middle shelf and turning back to the door.

_Oh, shit._

The car that had just pulled up in front of the store had a Hialeah P.D. decal on the side, and the man stepping out of the driver's side of the vehicle wore a clean black uniform. "Stay where you are!" The cop shouted, and Danny raised his hands.

The officer was clean-shaven and, Danny guessed, new -- he acted more like he was a hotshot cop on _Miami Vice_ than one of the other police officers that surveyed the streets wearily, those who had been demoted from better, more exciting jobs. Danny caught a glimpse of his accomplices standing on the far side of the street before the cop twisted him around and pressed him against the counter, taking the bottles from his hands. A minute later the cold steel of handcuffs wrapped around his wrists.

"Is this necessary?" Danny asked, trying not to sound too frantic. "All I did was take some stuff, 's not like I _killed _anyone."

The cop stared at him grimly. "As long as I have one more punk off the streets I'll be doin' my job, kid." He left to go radio his boss as Danny realized the last statement didn't answer his question at all. But he had learned long ago that it was futile to argue when the odds were overwhelmingly against you, and the cop had a gun while he was handcuffed.

Ten minutes later the rookie's partner showed up and helped shove Danny in the back of the car, heading back to the station as the night wore on.

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"I don't _know_ anything." He said to the cop across the table.

This cop was older, a little less eager to force any kind of confession out of Danny but still strict. "Pedro's been hitting these stores left and right, all summer long. We know he's behind them. If we can get something, we can get closer to busting him." He leaned closer, folded his hands on the tabletop. "He's head of a huge drug ring. And anything you tell us could really help you out, you know."

Danny was unconvinced, and he showed it. The cop continued, "We could get you into an after-school program instead of doing juvie. A few months of playing basketball sounds better than spending half a year in the slammer, doesn't it?"

"Half a year on one robbery?" He cried. "That's not fair."

"There was money missing from the register. And we could probably nail you on a couple of other robbery charges, from your other liquor store vandalisms."

Danny was silent, but his stomach felt queasy and the room was unbearably hot.

"Pedro would never know you told us." He promised.

Even for someone relatively new to the lifestyle of those on the streets, he knew that was a lie. When someone was detained in police custody for a day or two and then released for less time than originally scheduled for, it looked pretty shady -- even more so when the cops came to someone else's door with a "new eyewitness" in the case against them.

"I told you." Danny said stiffly. "I don't have anything to tell you."

The cop pushed back his rusting metal folding chair and stood, gathering his papers in a professional manner. "Very well then." He cleared his throat and opened the door to let Danny out. "We'll be heading up to the juvenile court tomorrow morning. In the meantime, we'll have to contact your parents so we can have them pick you up."

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The police officer filled them in as to what happened when they came. Consuela and Bobby looked alarmed, while Rafael looked hurt and betrayed. Danny didn't mind his foster parents' concern as much as he minded his brother's hatred towards him -- Pedro and Rafael had never been on good terms and for Danny to help Pedro out was the worst kind of backstabbing: betraying a family member for some extra cash.

The cops showed up the next morning around ten, and Danny spent the beginning of his day silently sitting in the back of the black car, awkward and stiff in the too-short suit he used to wear to church so long ago, when he still went.

He hadn't been scared of going to court until he saw the sign telling them that they were leaving Hialeah, and they should come back soon if they enjoyed their visit. To him the town was his whole world -- he knew every alley, every nook and cranny of that town as if it were engraved in his brain. The furthest he had been away from the town was on the way to Abuela's house, and the last time he had gone they only made it halfway before the car had begun to stray off the road . . .

He awoke to Consuela prodding his shoulder, unaware that he had even fallen asleep during the ride. Outside was a bustling yard and a small courthouse, but the men there were dressed in three-piece suits and there was a noticeable lack of graffiti and loitering teenagers.

The inside was much nicer than anything he had seen before; it was simple and clean and the wooden benches were polished and shining. The judge presided over the court and from Danny's point of view he looked so powerful he began to get nervous.

He was shaking when he reached the bench to testify, but his voice didn't waver when he swore on the Bible. Over the past few months it seemed God had better places to look after than Hialeah, and more important people to keep an eye on than him -- what would be the consequences of breaking his word to God?

Before he knew it, it was over and the judge had called for a five-minute recess to determine Danny's punishment. Outside of the courtroom there was a great commotion, but inside the few people there whispered quietly amongst themselves. When the judge re-appeared he seemed sterner than before as he fixed his eyes on Danny.

"While you have made a stupid decision and should be punished, your background is otherwise clear. This one count of shoplifting will go on your record, but I'm going to give you a chance."

Danny's hands stopped shaking, but his heart continued to pound.

"You have a choice. Either you can go to juvie for six months, or you can join St. Benedict's after-school program."

The choice was clear to him. "I'll take the after-school program." He said, nearly sighing with relief.

The judge nodded and dismissed the court.

--

Consuela and Bobby lectured him that night as Raffi refused to make eye contact, and when they finally left him alone the sun had long since gone down. The glowing hands of the clock told him it was midnight and he felt exhausted, wanting nothing more than to sleep and be alone, without any more judges or enemies or Pedro, when the knock at the window came.

"Hey, open up, Danny."

He could pretend to be asleep but Pedro wasn't that oblivious. His voice bitingly clear in the misty haze of night, he called out again. "Danny, come on."

Slowly he crawled out of bed and out of the window, where Pedro and two of his friends were standing. Something in his gut was telling him to go back to bed and forget all this; that one brush with jail had been enough and he wanted out.

"So," Pedro said, and Danny followed him as they began to walk, "I heard about your run-in with the cops."

"Yeah." Was all Danny could manage, mystified by this sudden visit and frightened by the eerie calmness of Pedro's voice. It was soothing, but underneath the soft tones he heard a harsh, accusatory voice.

"Did you hear Ricky got arrested, too?" He asked, and Danny's heart began to race, even more so than it had in the courtroom. "Yeah, it happened just after you talked with them."

"I didn't tell them anything." He hadn't, he wanted to scream, but even the truth sounded flimsy and unconvincing coming from him in such a wavering tone. "I didn't."

They were in an alley now, between two abandoned buildings in the less inhabited part of town.

The switchblade shimmered with the light of the streetlamp from above.

"It's pretty coincidental, though." Pedro mused, as Danny found himself backed into a corner. Behind Pedro were two other guys, too burly for Danny to even attempt to take on. "Right after you meet with the cops, Ricky gets arrested and he's serving six months for possession. And you get off without a hitch for stealing some liquor."

"I didn't do anything." He said, but it came out so softly that it sounded more like a prayer than a protest.

Somehow the two men behind Pedro got behind him and they were pinning his arms back, covering his mouth, and then he felt the cold metal brush against his skin before Pedro dragged it across his stomach.

Dark crimson spilled out from his abdomen as he struggled against the hands over his mouth and the knife on his skin. Then something connected with the back of his head and he found himself spinning into darkness; a feeling oddly familiar to him after all the nights of drinking, and he thought that someone must have been a rat or something and then he didn't think anything else.


	5. Chapter 5

Honestly, I didn't mean to wait half a year to update because I felt like it. G This year was very stressful and I had an enormous workload, and I'm truly sorry for not updating until now. (I hope to finish this during the summer.) So thanks for your patience, and thanks to **babythunder** and **CTB** for being the best betas a procrastinator like me could ask for. Enjoy.

Danny entered the church nervously, weakly making the sign of the cross as he approached the statue of the Virgin Mary that greeted him. To him the church was cold and foreboding, almost _too_ clean despite its rundown state; clean ivory statues of saints glared down at him disapprovingly from their perches. He felt ashamed of his muddy sneakers and his secondhand clothes, yet filled with more reverence than he thought he would have felt.

"Hey," came a voice from behind the statue. "Are you gonna stand there and gawk or are you gonna join the rest of the delinquents out here?" The speaker was a fairly tall priest whose sermons Danny remembered as being long and painfully boring from his memories of when he used to go to church. The man had changed, though; his hair was beginning to gray around the edges, and the worn lines around his eyes had set in, giving him a world-weary look.

Danny followed him out into the courtyard behind the church, where there were about fifteen other boys around his age. "Listen up," said the priest, stopping the boys from their idle chatting amongst themselves. "My name is Father Orlando Taylor. For the next three months, or however long it takes you to shape up and get your head straight, I'm going to be your least favorite person in the world."

"Fuck _this_ shit." Danny rolled his eyes and muttered softly to the boy next to him. Before he knew it, Father Orlando was standing in front of him, glowering.

"You think it's funny to swear in a church, punk?" He demanded. "That's the whole reason you're here. You're too much of a smart-ass to listen to what's good for you. Go," he said, waving his hand, "give me ten laps around the courtyard."

Danny stared back at him in disbelief. "What?" Despite what he knew he shouldn't do, he couldn't help but make a final effort to redeem his coolness in the eyes of the other boys. They wouldn't respect him as much if they knew he was already bending like a willow in the wind, already hoping for some way to return to his old life. "I don't have to take orders from an old man like you. Can't make me."

Father Orlando was surprisingly strong as he practically shoved Danny toward the edge of the courtyard. "I will not _ask_ you again. Now _run_."

Danny's legs began moving involuntarily as he ran the ten laps, the just-healed scar on his stomach aching with every move he made. "You're not done yet, Alvarez," Father Orlando called at him from over his shoulder when Danny stopped to take a breath after his seventh lap. By the time he completed his tenth lap, Danny was dripping in sweat, the hot Hialeah sun unmercifully strong even at four o' clock.

"You're lucky I don't make you run twenty." Father Orlando said, the sun casting his long shadow across Danny's feet before the priest went back to the other kids.

The soles of his feet seemed to burn upon contact with the pavement, and his legs ached with every move. But he pushed on, turning the corner at _Vuelta_ Street with more presence of mind and clarity than he had felt in what seemed like years. To walk down the street without unconsciously scanning the surrounding stores for ideas about which ones to hit that night felt simultaneously liberating and unnerving.

He was almost halfway through the park when he heard a slow call from behind him, sending a sharp shiver down his spine.

"_Al-varez_!"

The cruel, mocking tone, soft yet bitingly clear in the afternoon heat, drifted over to Danny. He turned around and saw that same hard smirk, those same intensely focused eyes, the same statuesque stance and cold stare that he had grown to dread. Memories of the night four weeks ago came back into his mind like smoke creeping through a filter.

"Alvarez? That you?" The hairs on the back of Danny's neck rose as Pedro began to walk toward Danny. "Well, of course it is. Who else would it be?"

He was smiling, a bitter, humorless smile that chilled Danny to the bone as his fears were confirmed, that he wasn't meant to survive the knifing. The realization dawned on him slowly and he felt sick, looking into the eyes of the person who had nearly destroyed his life after only a few short weeks. Or was it months? Time in Hialeah was beginning to slip away from him completely now.

"So now you're in rehab," he continued when Danny didn't respond. "Rediscovering God? Trying to get clean again?" The malice in his voice was clearly distinguishable, but Danny knew he wouldn't dare to hurt him in broad daylight. Still, he remained silent, fearful of what might come out of his mouth if he opened it.

"I've dealt with guys like you before. You think you can go join some church group with old man Orlando and the rest of those punks? They're nothing. But if you're going to join them, fine. 'Cause I guess I was wrong about you, about how you actually had guts. You're just another _loser_, another scrawny kid trying to make himself worth something. But you know what? You're not worth shit. Not you, not Raffi, not anyone in your goddamn family is worth shit. Now get the fuck out of my sight." His voice had subtly undergone a crescendo in tension, the strain in his voice rising during his tirade. Then, suddenly soft, he added, "I have another job to take care of tonight."

Danny hadn't expected him to be so angry, he reflected as Pedro stormed off with his anger carefully guarded so he wouldn't have to show his weakness to the others. He had figured he was just another pawn, like Pedro had said, another kid with nothing going for him. Was that why Pedro acted like Danny had betrayed him? Because Danny had decided to turn away from the one person who believed in him, the one person who placed trust in a stranger when carelessly trusting could cost lives in a town like Hialeah?

Even the rustling of the leaves by the swamp dogwood tree made him wary, and the walk home seemed endless. Around Fourteenth Street the sun began to fade, a palette turned upside down, its colors leaking out onto the sky. He hardly noticed. When he got home he grabbed the glass bottle and sat on the windowsill, looking out into the sleeping city while Raffi slept. And for reasons he wasn't quite sure of, he couldn't let go of the bottle's neck.

He threw up twice that night before slipping into an uneasy sleep, his dreams plagued with images that caused him to awake several times, shaking, unsure of what he had just experienced that made him so scared.

He regretted going into school the next day, but cutting class on the second day of high school probably wasn't the right way to make a good first impression, he realized while he was nursing his hangover with a few more aspirin than necessary. The six hours seemed to go on forever.

When he arrived at the church, his body stiff and sore and his regret for choosing to attend this goddamn place every day for the next few months growing greater by the minute, he was thoroughly anticipating entering the cool darkness of the church, if only for a few moments. But he stopped when he saw the police car parked out front and the black spray paint that was far too prominent on the doorway -- the only clean building in Hialeah -- and he was surprised to feel something catch in his throat, as though he couldn't breathe.

The interior looked like the pictures Danny had seen in history books, those of buildings after enemy planes in the war had bombed them. There was a broken bottle of liquor lying at the feet of the statue Danny had seen yesterday, that of the Virgin Mary, while Matthias the apostle looked down disapprovingly from the stained-glass window above it.

The church had never been too elaborate or fancy to begin with, always a clean, simple building kept immaculate by Father Orlando. But now the pews lay in disarray, knocked over onto their sides; the prayer books were scattered on the floor, their fragile pages torn, mangled, marred by spray paint. The whitewashed walls had vivid streaks of color racing in dizzying spirals and patterns, but in the church it seemed more offensive than artistic.

Danny wasn't prepared for the experience of entering the church and seeing it quite in that state, just as he hadn't been prepared to be so awestruck when he had first arrived the other day. But something about the hushed tones of the priests cleaning up, the three policemen trying to salvage what they could from the wreckage, was instantly sobering to Danny. Most of the other boys were leaving, thrilled that they wouldn't have to spend the next few hours under the watchful glares of the priests.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" He pushed his way through the tiny flock of policeman huddled on the floor, trying to piece together the splintered fragments of a fallen statue. Father Orlando looked at him for a minute, unsure as to why he was volunteering to help, and then handed him a broom that had been placed against the wall next to him.

"Try to get rid of the debris if you can," he said, the wounded tone in his voice evidence of the pain he was going through, "and if you can find anything still usable, save it."

Danny wasn't used to seeing the priest like this after he had experienced his confrontational means of communication the other day. It only took a few minutes before he decided that he couldn't stand the silence, the awkwardness; the unrelenting feeling that he was being watched by the figures on the walls. "Why would someone do this?"

Father Orlando sighed, his arms mechanically moving back and forth to remove the clutter and mess on the floor. "I don't know. Sometimes . . . sometimes people's motives are unclear to one when all you see is the surface. The result of an action can sometimes be mystifying when you don't know the cause."

"What'll you do if you find them?"

In a tired voice he recited, "The Bible teaches us that we must forgive those who have sinned against us." The priest looked as though he had passed along this piece of wisdom to countless people in his days at the church. "They should repent for what they have done, but God created them along with everyone else on this earth. They deserve forgiveness."

Danny had attended church regularly when Mami and Papi took him and Raffi and Joe and the rest of them, but he hadn't gone since then. Still, wisps of memories remained in his mind, scraps that had refused to diminish and dissolve over time. "But isn't this a house of God? Doesn't that make this an even bigger sin?"

Father Orlando stopped sweeping and looked up to meet Danny's inquisitive gaze. "It is a sin," he said, "but how can you measure one against another? You might consider someone's death to be more important than another's, but to a person close to the other's death, they will think their loss is greater than your own. It's the same with this church. Some people just won't care."

Danny thought this over as Father Orlando began to sweep again, but the priest must have seen the confusion displayed on Danny's face for he stopped again and spoke. "There's no black-and-white in religion. No matter which one you adopt, there will always be a gray area. That's what makes it so personal to you. How you interpret that and use it to improve your life."

The two men continued to sweep in silence.

That night when Danny arrived at his house, disheveled and smudged with spray paint stains with a thin sprinkling of fine white plaster powder dusting the top of his shoulders and mixed in with his hair, he went straight for the refrigerator. Soon he was gripping the bottle of alcohol by its neck, watching its oily contents wash out and slither down the drain of the kitchen sink.

He took a shower, letting the cold water rinse the grime and paint off his skin as he reveled in the feeling of being clean at last. Later that night he fell asleep and, for the first time in months, felt content.


End file.
